The Muslimsis a new Muslim graphic novel aimed at young Muslim children.

Author : Ahmad Philips is an author, illustrator, and animator. Raised in Michigan, he graduated in animation and worked as a video editor, illustrator, animator, and game designer. He’s traveled to different countries such as Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Malaysia, before coming back to his home town East Lansing, Michigan, where he currently lives with his wife and two kids. Outside of writing and drawing, Ahmad enjoys playing basketball, and spending time with his family.

Summary: The Muslims is about 2 kids, Hani and Huda, and the lessons they learn through everyday life. Each chapter tackles different moral issues such as stealing, sharing, being grateful and much more. Join Hani and Huda as they learn different aspects of Islam through their own life experiences.

Thoughts: For someone who grew up reading Manga graphic novels like Naruto, I appreciated this effort by Author Ahmad Phillips to cater to a young Muslim audience.

The book has 5 illustrated chapters which deal with different situations.

Chapter 1 is titled ‘Life is a Test’. Chapter 2 is ‘Rainy Day’. Chapter 3 is named ‘Being Truthful’. Chapter 4 ‘Having Fun’ and finally Chapter 5 deals with ‘Arrogance’. Chapter 1, 2, and 5 mainly revolve around Hani, the male character. On the other hand, Chapter 3 and 4 are mainly about his sister Huda.

In chapter 2, I wished there was a flashback or an explanation on how the children were taught the duas about rain in the first place.

Chapter 5 ends with a cliffhanger, and I’m curious to see how the ending scene plays out. Also, I don’t know why the teacher had to be so large… That said, it made me giggle a bit.

Having said all these above, the art of the book is a bit simplistic in my opinion but the graphic novel has good maxims we can use to teach Muslim children. In other words, I feel like The Muslims needs more details in the background of certain illustrations or more realistic facial expressions throughout and consistently the comic. Not to be harsh, the illustrations are at a sketch level now and need to be more fleshed out to achieve the level of mainstream comics’ quality insha’Allah. Of course, that also requires capital that self-publishers don’t always have.

Hoping this review is beneficial to the author and wishing him all the best with his art, ameen.

You can get your copy on Amazon here. And watch a video about the characters of the comic here on YouTube.

Papatia Feauxzar is the Love & Relationship Editor of Hayati Magazine. Feauxzar is also a Muslim Publisher and an American author of West African descent living in Dallas, Texas with her son and husband. She holds a master’s degree in Accounting with a concentration in Personal Finance. After working as an accountant for a corporate firm for almost five years, Feauxzar decided to pursue Accounting from home while homeschooling her son. You can visit her website at www.djarabikitabs.com.